<BR><small>Neo-burlesque queen Dita Von Teese headlines tonight's extravaganza.</small><P><B>Fluffgirls bring back the tease</B><BR>By Stuart Derdeyn in The Province <P><BR>Some might see Cecilia Bravo as a naughty nursie. A healthcare worker by day, after hours Bravo becomes Blaze. She's a head-turner with a balloon ballet specialty as blown-up as her pasties. <P>Founder of Fluffgirl Burlesque Society, one of a growing contingent of performance troupes reviving the lost art of peeling, Bravo was inspired to start Fluffgirl after she heard a collection of bump and grind songs from the '40s and '50s. Further investigation into where the music came from led her to the lost art of burlesque.<P><A HREF="http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/story.asp?id={AF74C07B-A51C-474D-B6D3-9125771058D1}" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

<B>Standing Tall - for Now</B><BR>By Eleonore Büning in The Frankfurter Allgemeine<P><BR>As a refuge of the tenth muse, the Palast is in fact the last place on earth where wishes might be granted. Every night, when the 64 long legs of the Palast chorus girls flash and bend and stomp and swing across the stage, divinely and perfectly parallel, as terrifyingly straight and rigid as an infantry battalion on the march, and as chaste, disciplined and well-groomed as a German forest, then one starts longing for some good old-fashioned sadness.<P>Legs can be beautiful. But 64 legs in parallel is an act of violence. <P><A HREF="http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?sub={5CAF5F42-9C1F-47B0-AC2D-5DA9E251B0F9}&doc={0AB745D9-D49F-4000-9418-F26E3523FA64}" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited January 13, 2002).]

John P. McLaughlin - The Province, May 31, 2002:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>The art of exotic dance</B> <P>Nowadays, you go to a peeler bar, it's a gynecology seminar with U2 blasting and frothy beer spilling over in the dark but there was a time when disrobing as entertainment was an art. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>[url=http://www.canada.com/vancouver/aroundtown/story.asp?id={0358E2BB-52BF-4102-9EB0-72ABE25E3C87}]<B>more...</B>[/url]<P>

<P>Bulesque is enjoying a huge revival at the moment - I'm surprised we haven't had more news clippings on the subject here, it seems like every magazine I flip through these days has something on the new burlesque scene. <P>Here's a link to the Pontani Sister's website - <A HREF="http://www.pontanisisters.com" TARGET=_blank>www.pontanisisters.com</A> - three siblings who started performing together as children who now peform mainly in the NYC area.<p>[This message has been edited by Marie (edited June 04, 2002).]

<P>San Fransisco's <A HREF="http://www.babydoe.net/photos/photoframes.html" TARGET=_blank><B>Devilettes</B></A><P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The Devil-Ettes began almost by accident, late last year at Radio Valencia's annual Christmas talent show. "Three or four of us didn't have any talent, and we felt really stupid,'' says Baby Doe. So they came up with an idea -- synchronized dancing. It was a smash. Twelve women, mostly staff members of Radio Valencia and its sister nightspot, Casanova, ended up signing on. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.sfbg.com/SFLife/tech/51.html" TARGET=_blank>Annalee Newitz - SF Life, March 21, 2001</A>:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The Devilettes are a San Francisco troupe of retro go-go dancers who do semi-ironic synchronized dances in tiny 1960s-style outfits that clash pleasingly with their very millennial tattoos, dyed hair, and piercings. Most important, several of the Devilettes are sexy without being skinny.<P>As writers like Justine Sharrock have pointed out in various places, it's hard for a girl to be chubby and feel sexy, even in allegedly liberated cities like San Francisco or Santa Cruz. Lots of people still think women must be tiny to be foxy, and that's why I've always appreciated the Devilettes for their symbolic meaning. They – like that cute gal wearing their T-shirt – demonstrate that chubby equals hot. There's nothing more heavenly than watching a Devilette dance and jiggle.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>

The Queen of Portland's (Oregon) underground dance scene, Kitty Diggens is the organizer of the Strange Fruit of Summer Burlesque review...<P><A HREF="http://www.wweek.com/html/mcolumn080900.html" TARGET=_blank>ZACH DUNDAS - Willammette Week, 08.09.00</A>:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>Live & Undead! <BR>Strange Fruit of Summer Burlesque Review</B><P>"I don't know how many clothes are going to be removed during this performance, and that might surprise people who have equated burlesque with stripshows," she continues. "There might be some costumes removed, but I don't know if there's going to be nudity." <P>The Cantankerous Lollies, a much-praised troupe of classic burlesque dancers from San Francisco, headline with their reportedly saucy can-can dancing and triple hula-hoop numbers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

In the beginning, there was burlesque - beautiful scenery festooned with even more beautiful, barely clad women. There wasn't much plot but there were a lot of musical dance numbers in these elaborate variety shows.

From the Boston Phoenix, burlesque back in Boston (well, Brookline, right next door):

Quote:

Sunset strip The bare facts on the new burlesque BY LIZA WEISSTUCH

Darcey Leonard openly confesses to a doll fetish. She favors imported gothic and Lolita Þgurines from Japan. And when she assumes her burlesque persona, Missy Conundrum, the Burlesque Enigma, she relishes painting herself up like one, donning button pasties and a dress (if only to have something to peel off) for her signature Doll-in-a-Music-Box routine. The act has been quite a hit in her home town of Los Angeles, where a burlesque revival is underway. And this Friday she’ll bring it to the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline as part of a "Burlesque and Batons" showcase featuring Brooklyn’s Oh de Twirlettes, who put a sassy spin on the majorette image, along with Leonard’s crony Dominica K., another baton to be reckoned with, and Through the Peephole, Boston’s own resident burlesque rejuvenators (formerly the Burlesque Revival Association).

It's been going on for decades on Miami Beach, where the Fontainebleau Hotel's LaRonde Room hosts a musical revue with a constantly rotating lineup of front men and women.

A year after it was first proposed, it appears a similar concept is headed to Fort Lauderdale's Parker Playhouse. Florida Follies is now pegged to open Jan. 8 and run through late March. It's a seasonlong revue featuring stars and geared for audiences "of a certain age ... somewhere between 50 and 70 years old."

If there's any period of American theater I most wish I'd been around to see, it's the New York cabaret theater scene of the 1950s.

The closest thing today to hallowed revues like New Faces, The Little Show, and Upstairs at the Downstairs are satirical troupes such as Forbidden Broadway, The Capitol Steps and Norwalk's own The News in Revue--which is settled in for a three-week run at Stamford's Rich Forum. I may be romanticizing the past, based on soundtrack albums and admiration for the many '60s sitcom stars who started out in N.Y.C. revues, but I have to report that News in Revue is a far cry from the genre at its best.

It sometimes seems that the revues celebrating Jerry Herman's songbook are more numerous than shows he actually wrote. The reason is obvious: Nobody writes more infectious showtunes, as exemplified in the Caldwell Theatre Company's aptly-titled Showtune.

The revue that opened last week is the latest incarnation of a show that's bounced happily around the theater world for the better part of 20 years under a variety of titles. Caldwell director Michael Hall has brushed up last year's off-Broadway edition at the York Theatre, with which the Boca Raton theater has a long relationship.

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